Nickel For Your Thoughts
by Cardinal Robbins
Summary: John Munch and Sarah Zelman, my SVU AU. A new twist on John following Sarah around their 'hood. Please read the Near Misses stories first. To say more would ruin the surprise! A bittersweet tale about love almost forever lost to both of them.


"Nickel For Your Thoughts"

by Cardinal Robbins

Disclaimer: If John were mine, he'd be doing a lot more in SVU than he is right now. And he'd get the girl, because Sarah Zelman would want it that way.

Author's Notes: This is with thanks to Animaltalker and LSMunch at the MunchagogueReformed for their great ideas, as well as their acceptance of the Munch/Zelman pairing. You'll understand the nuances of this story if you read the "Near Misses" stories first. This one takes place well after "November Rain."

There she is again – 'The Enigma.'

When I saw her, she was standing in line at Mocha Maven, trying to figure out what she wanted. It was a day she didn't have to bolt for work, I was sure. For a moment, my gaze was focused on the window, simply watching her through the slightly-tinted glass. She was deep in concentration, debating the virtues of Splenda-sweetened yogurt and a soy latte over the devil's own homemade glazed donuts to couple with a caramel macchiato.

To save her from herself, I opened the door and followed her.

A compromise. Her hand rested lightly on the pastry display case, suddenly darting into the cold case below and grabbing a container of fresh fruit. "Large soy latte, please," she said, "with sugar-free hazelnut syrup." Her free hand brushed her Glock; a gesture I'd come to recognize as a habit with her, like Linus with his ever-present blanket.

The cashier caught the gesture, too. "Law enforcement discount," he said.

"Not on my day off," she insisted. "Ring it up as you would anyone else's. Please," she added, expecting no favors for her service to the public.

"Eight dollars, five cents, please," he replied, secretly wondering why she wouldn't take the discount like everyone else would have. He obviously didn't know her like I did.

She felt in her jeans pocket for change and came up empty. "Sorry. Guess you'll have to break a ten," she apologized, pushing a five and three bills back into her pocket and pulling out a ten.

I came up behind her, proffering a nickel. "Allow me." Passing the coin to the cashier, she looked at me and smiled as she took out the small bills again.

"Stalking me again, John?" she asked, her voice low and almost seductive in my ear.

"Aren't I always?" As the cash drawer closed, I nodded toward a table. "Grab us a place to sit and I'll bring the drinks." My hand rested on the small of her back, but she didn't mind.

Moments later, we sat together and laughed over my ability to produce nickels, seemingly out of mid-air. She took a sip of latte and popped open the fruit, offering me a bite of honeydew. "Five cents. Some people would say it could make or break a relationship," she said softly.

"It certainly started ours," I agreed, "even though we had no clue at the time." Dropping the Earl Gray teabag into my cup of hot water, I thought back to those times when we'd almost introduced ourselves. Technically, I was still married during those times and shouldn't have been playing the field, but my marriage was in shambles and the emotional wreckage had crashed down on me hard. "Remember the first time?"

Her dark eyes sparkled as a musical giggle escaped. "How could I forget? Wang Chung's, over a year ago." She smiled wistfully, our hands reaching across the table in the same instant. "We both ordered orange chicken. You were busy staring at my piece, wondering if I was a cop." She gave me a look. "Admit it."

I laughed, feeling my face redden a bit. "I made you for a cop right away," I replied, "but my eyes were on more than your Glock." At the time, denied the opportunity of 'the chase,' I'd tried in vain to convince myself she was average in appearance and demeanor. Didn't work, since I already knew at that point my urge was to see her, to look into her eyes once more and see her shy smile again. "You don't think I skulked around after you, simply because you were packing? I had better things in mind, I'll have you know." I had wanted to get to know her, in every conceivable way.

"So did I, when I paid for a couple of your shirts," she retorted. "I don't pay for just anyone's shirts, sweetheart." She forked up a piece of pineapple and popped it into her mouth. "You knew right away? Or were you merely hoping to score?" she asked, knowing exactly how to extract the maximum amount of information from me, as if I were a perp in the box. Resistance wasn't in my vocabulary when it came to Sarah Zelman.

"Both, if you really want to know." Part of me longed for a newspaper to hide behind, reading aloud 'strange but true' news items to throw her off the scent of delving into my psyche, but I knew it wasn't about to shake out that way. "Instinct. You radiated loneliness as much as I did, which meant maybe I had a chance." She looked down at the tabletop, biting her lower lip. "You knew, too, didn't you?"

"Yes," she almost whispered, "I did. Almost immediately, but it threw me because of past relationships." She interlaced her fingers in mine, one hand free for sipping latte. "Seeing you around but not knowing you was rougher on me than that day in the WTC, in a lot of ways. I thought it was an opportunity missed, but damned if I knew what to do about it." She gave a little half-smile, the expression on her face when she felt regret and wanted to hide it.

"We were both scared half to death," I admitted, realizing she had been afraid as well. Of what? Rejection? Failure? The curse of two cops in a relationship, with the pressures of The Job suffocating them both in their anguished solitude? All of the above and more. "It didn't bother you, the night in the CVS when I was looking for Advil and you had a cold? I felt like I was back in high school, chasing you around like some bashful kid."

"You weren't the only one doing some heavy chasing," she joked, laughing softly. "You have no idea how many times I went to every place in this 'hood, trying to catch a glimpse of 'Tall, Dark and Handsome,'" she admitted. "Did you have a nickname for me?" Her dark eyes dared me and I took up the challenge.

"'The Enigma.'" I tipped my head back, feigning hurt feelings as she giggled and shook her head. "C'mon, Sarah," I teased, "you have to realize, nobody had a read on you. Even your doorman thought you were anything but FBI. I wasn't sure if you were FBI, CIA, Secret Service or what – your carry wasn't NYPD, that's all I did know."

I took a long sip of tea and vowed to beat her at her own game with the next question. "That day in the North Tower… Did you know it was me?" I studied her face carefully, wishing she'd tell me she'd known. Wishing she'd tell me she knew I'd make sure she would be rescued, recognizing me on some level as the man who genuinely cared about her; who would have given anything to have taken her out of there myself, if I'd been able to move hundreds of pounds of concrete by my will alone.

"There was something about your voice," she said, narrowing her eyes in thought. "It sounded familiar at first, but then I chalked it up to wishful thinking and the concussion." For a long moment, she looked down at our entwined fingers. "When you slipped your hand through the crack in the concrete, I felt something when we held hands for a minute or two."

She took a deep breath, unshed tears standing in her eyes. "Then, I knew. Even when I tried to pull away, knowing chances were good I wouldn't get out of there, I felt you there making sure things didn't go south." Sarah blinked and a single tear slipped down her cheek, before I reached over to brush it away. "I knew it was you, John. Everything in me recognized it, but what could I say? I was so afraid we'd both die in there. We'd already connected somehow, suddenly there you were to save my life. When you didn't leave, I knew for certain." She dropped her gaze to the table again, tears falling freely. "I made it out because you already loved me; somehow we already loved each other."

"Hey… I'm sorry, babe." I brushed my thumb gently across her cheek, trying to wipe the pain and tears away. Once again, I'd pushed too hard for the sake of my rampant curiosity and the desire to hear her say it. To say she knew, and that I was somehow able to give her a sense of security in a situation of complete chaos. "Please don't cry… It's over," I whispered. "It's all fine now," I assured her, moving my chair closer to hers. "We don't have to talk about it anymore, okay?"

We drank in silence for a few long minutes, sharing the fruit and waiting for someone to toss a morning edition of the Times on our table. Newspapers were randomly passed from table to table, as readers finished and handed them on. She'd stopped crying right away, but now she gazed at me with red-rimmed dark eyes, which held a question.

"John? On September eleventh, at the North Tower… When were you sure?" The wonderment was softly breathed on silky warm air, no louder than a whisper. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder, comfortable with our curiosity that intermingled with cordial silences.

"The moment you described yourself," I said, shaking my head. "Being a cop, when you told me about your reddish-blonde hair and passed me your Glock…those were enough for me to put it all together. Then you mentioned the Bureau; it meshed with what I'd seen and heard at Wang Chung's. I suddenly realized, the woman I was so deeply attracted to could die, before we'd even 'met.'" I wrapped my arm around her, wanting to protect us both from the memories of almost losing our chance at happiness.

"I didn't look at your fold-over, even though you'd handed me your badge and I.D.," I explained, "but when I saw you in the ICU, everything came flooding back." Good thing my darkest glasses were on, because the thought of her fighting so hard in Mercy General always hit me with a wave of emotion. She could tell, too, because the next thing I felt was my hand in hers, her lips briefly against my cheek.

"We're the lucky ones," she said simply. "All because of a nickel."

"Five crummy cents…" I said, laughing softly. "If I'd been out of change, we'd be out of luck." A stranger smiled, offered us the newspaper and we nodded our thanks. "Funny thing is, I don't recall having any change in my pockets before I walked into Wang Chung's." As a matter of fact, I'd given what I thought was the rest of my change to Olivia, earlier in the day when she made a run across the street to Fiven Dime's for snacks. "I'm almost sure of it, Sarah. I was completely out of silver."

"Then how do you explain it, John?" she asked, taking another sip of latte. "Divine intervention?"

I grinned, ready to admit as much. "Maybe God wanted me to have a little pocket change for a reason."

"Like this?" Sarah reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a five-cent piece. She winked at me and I stared at the shiny coin in her hand.

"You conniving vixen! You had the correct change all along, but you let me think – " My brows must have arched as everything neatly fell into place. "You… That night in Wang Chung's, did you – ?"

She laughed, a carefree lilt of amusement that never ceased to lighten my mood. "I'll never tell. Let's suffice to say you weren't the only one who wanted to get together." She nudged me gently and added, "The important thing was, you had a nickel when I needed it. Regardless of where it came from."

"Yes, I did – be it from God or somebody else, it was there when we needed it." I smiled and opened the newspaper, reading headlines as she snagged the Calendar section.

'The Enigma,' now as always, had left me to ponder the providence of a coin in the context of something much larger: Love, life and two people whom intervention and circumstance had pushed together for what I hoped was a long time to come.


End file.
